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What the hell is landing page?

The easiest way to define it is to say that the purpose of the Landing page is people to "land" or "arrive for certain purpose.

However, when discussing landing pages within the realm of marketing and advertising, it's more common to refer to a landing page as being a standalone webpage distinct from your main website that has been designed for single focused objective.

This means that your Landing page should have no global navigation to tie to your primary website, The main reason for this is to limit the options available to your visitors, helping to guide them toward your intended conversion goal.

Types of Landing pages

There are two basic types of Landing page, Click Trough and Lead Generation (also referred to as Lead Gen or Lead Capture) pages.

Click Through Landing Pages

Click through landing pages (as the name implies) have the goal of persuading the visitor to click through to another page. Typically used in ecommerce funnels, they can be used to describe a product or offer in sufficient detail so as to “warm up” a visitor to the point where they are closer to making a purchasing decision.

All too often, inbound advertising traffic is directed at shopping cart or registration pages. This leads to poor conversions as the ad doesn’t provide sufficient information for someone to make an informed decision.

This is where the click through page comes in. As a result, the destination page from a click through page is typically the shopping cart or registration page – now with a much higher chance of conversion having passed through the details of the landing page.

Lead Generation Landing Pages

Lead gen pages are used to capture user data, such as a name and email address. The sole purpose of the page is to collect information that will allow you to market to and connect with the prospect at a subsequent time. As such, a lead capture page will contain a form along with a description of what you’ll get in return for submitting your personal data.

There are many uses for lead gen landing pages, some example uses and the items given to the user are listed below:

Ebook or whitepaper

Webinar registration

Consultation for professional services

Discount coupon/voucher

Contest entry

Free trial

A physical gift (via direct mail)

Notification of a future product launch

The length of your form and the level of personal data requested can have a direct impact on conversion. Try to ask for the absolute minimum amount of information that will enable you to market to your prospects effectively. For instance, don’t ask for a phone or fax number if you only need to contact them via email.

Why should I Use Landing Page?

The main reason for this is that targeted promotion or product specific landing pages are focused on a single objective that matches the intent of the ad that your visitors clicked on to reach your page.

If you consider the example of sending traffic to your homepage vs. a standalone landing page, you can understand that your homepage is designed with a more general purpose in mind. It speaks more to your overall brand and corporate values and is typically loaded with links and navigation to other areas of your site.

Every link on your page that doesn’t represent your conversion goal is a distraction that will dilute your message and reduce your conversion rate.

An example of bad message matchAd: Get 50% off a Dell Inspiron 9000Landing page message: Welcome to Dave’s Computer Store

An example of good message matchAd: Get 50% off a Dell Inspiron 9000Landing page message: Get 50% off a Dell Inspiron 9000 at Dave’s Computer Store

By ensuring a strong message match, you are letting the visitor know that they made a “good click”.

When Should I Use a Landing Page?

You should try to use a landing page for every inbound advertising campaign you operate. You might be selling multiple products or setting up promotional offers for different user segments and your homepage can’t deal with this level of message differentiation. The style and effectiveness of your inbound marketing will also vary according to the source (PPC, email, organic, social media, display banners), so you should try and provide a relevant experience to each input to the funnel.

Segmented Promotional Offers

If you need to communicate discounts or messaging to various classes of customer, for example: people who’ve signed up but never subscribed to your pain subscription model vs. those on your top tier plan, the simplest way is via separate landing pages. They enable you to keep your message private and personalized while not interfering with the general purpose of your homepage.

Not all promos are for all people.

Multiple Products

Product advertising usually goes to one of three places: homepage, product detail page, shopping cart page. Of these the product detail is the best as it will provide enough information to make an informed purchasing decision. However, there is still the option and likelihood that visitors will wander off course via the main navigation. Perhaps they will buy something else, and after all a sale is a sale right? Wrong. If you are trying to run an effective marketing campaign, a big priority should be metrics based accountability.

Landing Page Best Practices

The first rule of landing page best practices is this: they are a starting point to help you construct your best first attempt at a landing page. After that, you need to experiment and let the customers decide what they think is the best converting page for the job.

You can use a checklist (tips like those below) or a scorecard to rate your landing page and produce a to-do list of items to fix.

With that caveat out of the way, here are some quick general rules of thumb you can apply to your landing pages:

21 quick Landing Page Tips

Ensure the primary headline of your landing page matches the ad visitors clicked to get there.

Make your call to action (CTA) big and position it above the fold.

Use directional cues to direct attention to your CTA (arrows or photos/videos of people looking or pointing at your button).

For lead gen forms where the CTA is below the fold (e.g. due to a long form) – make the directional cue point down the page to the button.

A landing page should have a single purpose and thus a single focused message.

Congruence: every element of your page should be aligned conceptually with the topic and goal of the page.

Show your product/service being used in context.

Use video. It’s been shown to improve conversion by up to 80%.

Edit to remove unnecessary content. Be succinct.

Use real testimonials for authenticity.

Show social proof via indicators of your social status.

Test new ideas using A/B testing. Let your customers decide which message works best for them.

Provide a free trial. Try-before-you-buy is a standard and expected feature.

Provide a guarantee to reduce/remove risk.

Include partner co-branding to increase trust by association.

Simplify your copy using bullets.

If you are selling a book, or giving away an eBook via lead gen, provide a preview to increase trust show that you are proud of your product.

About the author

Erkki is founder and AD, who has been with Sviiter since its first steps. Erkki is with economy degree but with great passion for art & design. He has been a mentor in Ajujaht, manager of Innovation Year and helped to build Education Innovation Centre in Tallinn University.